Microsoft Also Challenges Government Surveillance Gag Order

Microsoft asked a secret U.S. surveillance court for permission to disclose more information about government requests it receives for customer account data.

Microsoft cited the First Amendment in its legal filing to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, and challenged what the company says are U.S. government restrictions on how much it can reveal publicly about secret orders to turn over user information in U.S. surveillance efforts.

Microsoft made its filing with the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court a week ago. The secret court released the legal filing on Wednesday.

Big U.S. technology companies, including Microsoft, Google and Facebook, have been caught in a swirl of controversy following revelations of how the National Security Agency receives data from the companies in order to keep tabs on foreigners of interest to U.S. intelligence services.

The companies have pushed back against some of the earliest news reports — based on leaked documents from former government contractor Edward Snowden — that suggested the companies cooperate with automated and widespread siphoning of account information.

Microsoft in its court challenge Wednesday said its efforts to fight those perceptions have been hamstrung because federal authorities have imposed limits on how much the company can say about the number and nature of surveillance requests it receives under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.

Microsoft and Google previously have said they should be allowed to disclose in aggregate how many FISA orders they receive each year, and how many of its accounts are covered by those secret orders, for information such as the text of a user’s email messages and photos stored online.

“Given the size of Microsoft’s user base, the Government can not reasonably contend that disclosure of the Aggregate Data could lead any particular individual user to infer that he or she had been targeted,” Microsoft wrote in its court challenge Wednesday.

Microsoft said its inability to disclose the aggregate number of requests is a violation of free speech protections in the U.S. Constitution.

Note: This post has been updated with additional information from Microsoft’s court filing, and background on the U.S. Internet companies’ dealings with surveillance agencies. The date of Microsoft’s court filing also has been corrected; an earlier version of this post incorrectly said Microsoft’s legal challenge was made Wednesday.